Monday, April 13, 2015

In January,
Florida Governor Rick Scott announced a plan to cut $470
million in cellphone and television taxes. Fortunately, Florida State
legislators appear to be receptive to his plan. On April 9, the Florida House
passed a $690
million tax cut
that would save cellphone users a significant amount of money if the Senate
signs off on the bill.

Currently,
Florida residents pay thefourth highest wireless tax ratein the country
when including federal, state, and local taxes. Only New York, Washington, and
Nebraska have higher wireless tax rates.

Cutting wireless
taxes will substantially benefit the low-income Florida residents considering
that over 56 percent of all poor American adults had only wireless Internet service
as of December 2013. (This percentage has likely increased as wireless networks
and wireless plans have become more available.) So not only is it important
that wireless taxes be cut throughout the United States – not just Florida, but
also that taxes on Internet access are as low as possible in order push prices
to an affordable level so every willing consumer can get online. As I’ve
encouraged Congress before, this is why the House and Senate should vote to permanently extend the Internet
Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), which would ban taxes on Internet access
at the state and local levels. (See here and here.)

As of now, the current
tax moratorium of the ITFA expires on October 1, 2015, so the permanent moratorium
should be adopted as soon as possible. Permanently extending the ITFA should be
legislation both parties and chambers can support because it will lead to additional
market-driven innovation, content, and economic growth.